Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Michael I Torres

Jason C Fluegel

Oludare Victor Obasanjo

Matthew S Augustine

DeEtte M Day

Jason S Flaks

Jordan L K Schwartz

Thomas Anand Jeyaseelan

Joseph Andrew Bono

Eyal Axelrod

Stephen P Rosato

German A Gil

Rob Dolin

Nikhil Singhal

John R Kountz

Jane T Kim

Oliver Hurst-Hiller

Robert Michael Dolin

Apurva F Dalia

Jacob D Kim

Mukeshkumar M Beher

Michael A Pacholec

Eytan D Seidman

Charles K Martz

Jordan LK Schwartz

Jason Scott Flaks

Aspects of the subject matter described herein relate to providing and restricting access to content. In aspects, information (e.g., a URL) that identifies content and a user is provided to a user. In conjunction with providing the information to a user, a data structure (e.g., an access control list) is updated to indicate that the user has access to the content. The user may use the information to access the content and/or may send this information to other users. The other users may use the information (e.g., by pasting it into a browser) to access the content and may be added to the data structure so that they may subsequently access the content without the use of the information. Access to the content via using the information may be subsequently revoked.

Integrating security by obscurity with access control lists

A method for annotating shared contacts within a social network with public tags, notes or other data. This allows users of a social network to gain useful information at a glance about others' contacts within that network, as well as providing a means for filtering contacts within that network by user-defined keywords. Such a system improves and simplifies the ability of a user to discover new potential friends and business contacts.

Annotating shared contacts with public descriptors

A content page is configured by a user and located on a network. Changes made to the content page are automatically communicated with notifications to a group of contacts for the user. Only contacts with permission to view the content page, or the changed content, will receive the notification and have permission to view the changes. A visual indicator notifies contacts that a content page of one of their contacts has been changed. When the visual indicator or some other contact indicator is selected by the user, a summary module can be provided. The summary module is a portal to network content, including the content page.

Dynamic content change notification

Profile data from multiple networking services can be combined and queried from one networking service. A primary networking service may store user profile data for one or more secondary networking services and the primary networking service. When stored, the data from the multiple networks may be aggregated or merged. The stored data may include user profile data and relationship data for each networking service that a primary networking service has a profile account with. A graph of user-contact relationships existing over the primary networking service and one or more secondary networking services may be constructed and queried against.

Aggregating and searching profile data from multiple services

Searches can be performed by attaching social contact metadata to a query where the metadata may be related to a degree of separation, chat room participation and geographical information related to an owner's contacts. Searches can then be executed by generalized search engines based at least in part on the metadata. The metadata may include contact identifiers that are unique across one or more social networks, and may include contacts for individual people as well as groups or other affiliations.

Searching with metadata comprising degree of separation, chat room participation, and geography

Permissions using a namespace is described. In an embodiment, a namespace system includes a network resource that has a resource permission, and includes a namespace that has one or more members associated with the namespace. The namespace system also includes a namespace permission to permission the network resource to one or more of the members of the namespace.

Permissions using a namespace

A tag management system that enables consolidation, aggregation and/or synchronization of tags between local and remote sources. Further, the system provides users with a single rich view of client and Internet data related to appropriate tagging schemes. The system allows users to import and export tags and taxonomies from online service providers and provides a central location for users to store their tags. The central location is accessible to the user both on the client and for use online.

Consolidating local and remote taxonomies

A social networking service is integrated with a traditional communication service. The communication service may include an instant messaging service, an electronic mail service, a content page management service, or other communication service. The communication service provides one or more interfaces allowing a user to navigate and manage a contact network. A user may access several layers of contacts, and expand their contact list, by selecting additional contacts within additional contact lists.

Networking through electronic messaging and mail

Requests received from bots for non-adult personal content pages are processed to prevent the content pages from being stored and indexed. Excluding non-adult personal content pages from access to search engines protects the privacy of the non-adult associated with the page. A personal content page may be implemented as and/or include a profile, a blog, or other content and/or personal information for the non-adult. A recognized bot which sends a content request for a non-adult personal content page is not provided with meta-data allowing a search engine to index the page. Additionally, the bot is instructed to not access and/or index the non-adult personal content page. By not providing personal content page meta-data to the bot and instructing the bot to not access and/or index the non-adult owner's page, the bot should not acquire information regarding the personal content page.

Protecting non-adult privacy in content page search

Dynamic summary module

Growing community of inventors

Seattle, WA, United States of America

Michael I Torres